


The Act Of Trust

by cuttooth



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: M/M, Mild self harm (skin picking), Some discussion of Jon’s feeding, Spoilers TMA 172, The boys have a talk, episode coda, mention of smoking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-18
Updated: 2020-06-18
Packaged: 2021-03-04 02:47:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,067
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24796396
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cuttooth/pseuds/cuttooth
Summary: It still isn’t easy, talking about things, trusting people, but he knows it’s what’s keeping him anchored. Keeping him human, or as close to it as he can be, at least. If he doesn’t talk about what he’s experiencing—how he feels, however horrifying and shameful—he could lose himself without even realizing it.If he doesn’t trust Martin—*After the Web, they talk about it a bit.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Comments: 49
Kudos: 236





	The Act Of Trust

**Author's Note:**

> After every episode this season I want another full episode of Jon and Martin talking about what just happened and their feelings. After this episode, I had too many feelings to properly contain.

Jon leads the way along a narrow, branching corridor, passing more auditoriums, more endless tragedies. The doors are shut, of course, because the performance has begun and it is a full house; there will be no more admissions. The muted sounds of laughter and chitinous, multitudinous chittering and the occasional scream come from inside, and the air backstage smells like cigarette ash and blood. Jon’s fingers itch for something to hold. 

Martin stays close, all the way, almost bumping against Jon’s shoulder as they walk. 

At last they find a door with a brightly lit sign above it. The sign reads NO EXIT. This does not mean them, Jon knows. He pushes down on the rusted crash bar, which screeches in protest before giving way, and the door opens. They step out into the ruined world. 

When they get far enough away to look back and really _see,_ Jon notices that the theater looks a bit like the Lyceum. Far more massive, of course, its tarnished edifice warped and stretched into a predictably symmetrical arrangement. But, not dissimilar. Perhaps it was the Lyceum, once. 

They keep walking, and Jon’s legs itch to lengthen their stride like his fingers itch for something to grip, to occupy and distract them. He clenches them into his palm, keeps pace with Martin, who is walking with his head down and a look on his face that says he’s thinking. His percolating look, as Jon thinks of it, a little crease between his eyebrows and his lips moving minutely as he has some fierce discussion with himself. Jon knows better than to interrupt Martin when he’s percolating. Sooner or later the thoughts will finish brewing—or some other, less clumsy metaphor—and he’ll tell Jon what he’s thinking. 

Considering where they’ve come from, Jon is happy to wait for a while before talking about it. If he’s honest (and he’s trying to be these days, he really is) he’d be just as happy not to talk about it at all. He knows that’s a harmful impulse, though; self-destruction framed as self-defense. That isn’t who he’s chosen to be anymore. 

It still isn’t _easy,_ talking about things, trusting people— 

_(the temptation to take just a peek, just to be sure the spiders aren’t crawling over what’s his)_

—but he knows it’s what’s keeping him anchored. Keeping him human _,_ or as close to it as he can be, at least. If he doesn’t talk about what he’s experiencing—how he feels _,_ however horrifying and shameful—he could lose himself without even realizing it. 

_(how do you know you’re the same person who fell asleep?)_

If he doesn’t trust Martin—

His nails dig into his palm hard enough to hurt. 

“I was worried, you know.” 

Martin stops in his tracks, abruptly, so Jon stops and turns to him. His percolating expression has been replaced by his determined expression; this generally means they are going to have A Conversation. Jon considers that maybe they could find somewhere a bit less...exposed, to sit and talk, but really, there’s nowhere that isn’t exposed these days. 

“Worried about what?” he asks. 

“When you told me we were coming to a Web domain. I was worried...well, you know you left a lot of tapes in your office before the Beholding? All the ones you made while you were away.”

“On the run for murder, you mean.” 

“Yeah, that. Well, I listened to them. While you were—you know...”

“Dead,” Jon supplies, and Martin gives a sad little laugh. 

“Yeah. Sorry, funny that I still have trouble saying it, after—after everything. Not like it’s the worst thing that’s happened to us!” His jovial bravado rings false, and Jon hates hearing that note in Martin’s voice, that _everything’s okay_ note when everything really, really isn’t. 

“Martin…” he begins, but Martin shakes his head fiercely. 

“No, please, Jon, let me—I listened to your statement. About...about when you were a kid? And I was worried that—well, you’ve found the others, haven’t you? The ones that’ve marked you.” 

“You thought we might find Mister Spider.” Even now it’s hard to say that name. Fear doesn’t feel the same to Jon as it once did, but the thick bile still rises in his throat, the instinctual shudder of nerves firing down his spine. He tries not to linger on how that fear tastes on the back of his tongue. 

“I mean, didn’t it occur to you?” 

“Yes...yes, of course it did.”

“Do you know why we didn’t?”

Jon frowns. He hasn’t thought about the why of it—or rather, he didn’t _want_ to think about it, about why their pilgrimage brought them through this particular manifestation of the Web, its hanging hooks and guiding strings and victims stepping time and again through the same dance of will against want and always, always failing. They were not moths fluttering purposeless into the spider’s strands; something _brought_ them here. 

“It was a—a reminder, I think. Of what I’ve done. What I _chose_ to do.” Jon hears the unsteady note in his own voice and then Martin is grasping his arm. 

“Jon,” he says, ”Let’s just—” He looks around as if there might be somewhere pleasant to sit _(no comfortable chairs in the apocalypse)_ and then, with a huff, folds onto the bare, blasted earth, tugging Jon down with him. Jon sits with his knees hunched, and Martin sits cross legged in front of him, giving him a worried frown.

“You didn’t _choose_ any of this,” Martin tells him. “It was all Jonah. He tricked and manipulated and used you! I know it’s hard to believe, sometimes—” 

_“No,_ Martin, not—not that.” Jon shakes his head. “I’m talking about what I...well, you took the statement. You heard what I did to that woman, to the others I fed on.” The pit of his stomach feels, appropriately, like it’s filled with spiders, squirming and sick and heavy with self-disgust. 

“That was—yeah, that was bad, Jon. But you didn’t know what it was doing to them, not _really.”_

“I knew enough! And I did it anyway, gave those poor people nightmares to last their whole lives.” Jon laughs. “Before I turned everyone’s lives into a nightmare, that is. I _chose_ to do it, Martin. It felt good. And I latched onto the idea that the Web was making me do it because I couldn’t take responsibility for my own actions. And now I have all the fear in the world pouring into me. I’m like a—a whale shark, just swimming along with my mouth open, swallowing it all down. I don’t have to hurt anyone directly to feed. And I don’t know—” 

Jon looks down at his hands, resting against his thighs. They are faintly gray with the dust that gets everywhere, ground into the seams of skin and scars. His nails are bitten short, a bad habit his grandmother never managed to quite rid him of. Something horrible sits in the back of his throat, and he bites his tongue, not wanting to say it. 

Martin’s voice is very soft when he says:

“You don’t know what?” 

Jon sighs. The horrible thing crawls onto his tongue, and he lets it loose.

“I don’t know if the only reason I’m not hurting people is because they’re feeding me anyway.” 

“Oh,” says Martin. Jon feels a bitter smile tugging at the corner of his mouth like a hook, and he can’t look up, picks at the ragged cuticle of his thumb instead. He wishes he had a cigarette.

“You tried to stop, though, didn’t you?” 

“When the others made me, when you—” _When you caught me,_ he doesn’t say. He digs his nail in harder, until it hurts.

“They couldn’t have _made_ you stop. Not unless you wanted to.” 

“I—I _wanted_ to want to.” Jon swallows the hitch in his breath that threatens to turn into a sob; he’s already wallowing in self pity enough. The strip of cuticle tears loose. A thin line of blood wells up from his nail bed, and instantly dries as the wound heals. Martin sighs, and his hand appears in Jon’s line of sight, grasps the abused hand and lifts it out of reach, cradling it between his own. Jon risks a glance at him. He looks...he just looks like Martin. 

“Then you wanted to,” says Martin firmly. “You _wanted_ to stop, Jon, but you needed help. There’s no shame in that.”

“But what if—”

“Forget about ‘what if’!” Martin tells him, squeezing his hand. “What if I’m being controlled by spiders? What if Gertrude was right and there’s nothing we can do about all this? There’s enough guilt and worry to go around without dragging hypotheticals into it!” 

“Martin—”

“I love you, Jon. Okay? And I trust you. You are a good person, and we are both doing our bloody best in this—this _ludicrous_ situation, and frankly the Web can go and get _fucked_ if it’s trying to tell you otherwise. All right?” 

Martin’s face is red with determination, and though his eyes are wet, his jaw is set like stone. Jon is overwhelmed once again by how much he loves this man, how that love fills up all the space behind his rib cage, and though the spiders in his stomach don’t vanish, their squirming lessens. He takes a deep breath, and nods. 

“I love you,” is all he can say for a moment. Martin gives a tight smile. 

“I should hope so.”

They sit quietly for a little while. It’s not exactly comfortable—the ground is hard and cruel beneath them, the Eye overhead a constant presence—but it is comforting. Martin keeps holding Jon’s hand, tracing his fingers along the shiny ridges of scar tissue, up to brush over Jon’s own fingertips, a delicate connection between them. Jon’s fingers don’t itch, held in Martin’s own. Eventually, Martin gives a long sigh, and draws Jon’s hand up to kiss the tips of his fingers, then his knuckles.

“Suppose we’d better get going. We don’t want to be late to the Panopticon, Jonah might fire us.” He tilts his head, thinking. _“Are_ we still Institute employees?” 

“I, ah, I think so, technically,” says Jon. “Though I imagine the pension scheme is rather out the door at this point.” They both get to their feet, and Martin brushes down the backs of his trousers, as if it might get rid of the dust. It’s such a perfectly human gesture that Jon can’t help smiling. 

“What?” Martin asks, suspicious. Jon shakes his head. 

“Nothing, you’re just...adorable.” 

“You’re the adorable one,” Martin mutters, as a pleased flush creeps across his cheeks. “Ready to go?” 

“Yes, of course,” Jon hesitates a second. “Just, uh...Martin?”

“Yeah?”

“What you said, about the, uh, the spiders?”

“Oh,” Martin says. He gives a sharp little laugh, and there’s a catch in it like the first crack in a pane of glass, the kind that threatens to spider web out and shatter. 

“If you don’t want to talk about it—”

“No, it’s—it’s okay,” says Martin. “We can talk about it, but it’s...hypotheticals, like I said. No point worrying. We’ll just...be careful. I might not want you poking around in my head, but you can still keep an eye on me. With your _actual_ eyes. And I’ll do the same for you. I’ll let you know if you get ominous, you let me know if I get...spidery.” He wiggles his fingers. 

“I promise to keep a close count on the number of limbs you have,” Jon says solemnly. The laugh Martin gives at that is far more genuine, and Jon feels warm with it. 

That temptation is still there, to look, to just be _absolutely_ sure _._ _He’d never even know,_ something murmurs in the back of Jon’s head, and it’s true. It’s true, and Jon squashes the idea without mercy. 

It’s not easy, talking about things. Trusting people. But if he doesn’t trust Martin, then he might as well give it all up right now and succumb to this world. He _trusts_ Martin, and that is both a choice, and a defiance of the fear that tries to tell him he shouldn’t. 

The Web can—as Martin so eloquently put it—get fucked.

“Right, let’s go,” he says, and takes Martin’s hand in his. 

**Author's Note:**

> Find me @cuttoothed on tumblr.


End file.
